


So I Lit A Fire

by anything_thats_rock_and_roll



Series: With Every Mistake, We Must Surely Be Learning [1]
Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bickering, I Love You, M/M, McLennon, Norwegian Wood, Recording Studio, Working With People You're Sleeping With Is Harder, argument, working together is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:15:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25405222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anything_thats_rock_and_roll/pseuds/anything_thats_rock_and_roll
Summary: Tensions are always high when recording doesn't go smoothly. Throw in a secret relationship and poor communication skills, and it's a recipe for disaster.OR: John takes musical criticisms way too personally during the writing/recording of Norwegian Wood.
Relationships: John Lennon/Paul McCartney
Series: With Every Mistake, We Must Surely Be Learning [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859545
Comments: 6
Kudos: 56





	So I Lit A Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This is very loosely based on actual frustrations during the recording of Norwegian Wood, but I've taken plenty of liberties with facts. There's a small chance this story will have a sequel about the recording of She Said She Said- if you like this one, leave a comment and I'll actually bother to write the other one!

John wakes up slowly, consciousness filtering into him like water through a sieve. The smooth fabric of the pillow pressing against his cheek and nose. The cool air caressing his bare shoulder blade but stopping at his hips, where the blanket wraps around him protectively. The warm weight of an arm slung across his back; the accompanying body pressed firmly into his side. It’s this last sensation that makes John crack open his eyelids, a sleepy smile already curling across his lips.

This action is rewarded by the sight of Paul, eyes bright and alert despite the early hour. Paul always had been an early riser. One side of his mouth quirks up and his hand languidly strokes John’s side.

“Mornin’ princess,” he drawls.

“S’not my fault you get up ‘fore the birds,” John grouses, but there’s no heat in it. He reaches for Paul, pulling him in closer and burying his head in the crook of his neck. His eyes start to drift closed again when Paul’s voice breaks in.

“Ah- not on my watch, Johnny. We’ve got to be in the studio bright and early, remember.” John harrumphs and clings tighter.

“Y’mean you do, taskmaster. Think I’ll ‘ave a lie in.” Paul carefully extricates himself and straightens up.

“Right-o. Don’t be later than usual. Tea’ll be in the kitchen when you get up.” Paul leans in for a quick kiss.

“Ta, love,” John says to his retreating back.

John closes his eyes, listening to the faint sounds of Paul bustling around the kitchen. It still amazes him, to wake up in Paul’s bed in Paul’s flat in London, to faff around in the morning just enjoying each other’s company. It’s worth every bit of guarded conversation and careful planning it takes to protect their clandestine association.

It does take plenty of careful planning. John hears the door swing shut as Paul leaves. He’ll walk to the studio just like any other day. John will wait, arriving customarily late in his car, as if he’d driven from Weybridge. All prearranged, intended to arouse as little suspicion as two of the most famous blokes in the world shacking up possibly could.

When John pushes open the door of Studio 2 several hours later, he has tea in hand and a tune rattling around in the back of his head. Paul is sat at the piano, muttering to himself and intermittently striking isolated chords. George and Ringo chat animatedly while George tunes his guitar.

“Alright, John?” George calls over his shoulder.

“Never better,” John inclines his head toward the pair. “Mornin’ Ritchie.”

John’s gaze skates across Paul’s back. The latter is apparently too engrossed in the piano for any greeting, judging by his downturned head.

“Ah John, glad you’re here,” George Martin’s voice booms out of the speakers surrounding them. John starts, looking up through the glass to where their producer stands behind the enormous recording desk. “I thought we could continue with your song from last session. Does it have a name yet?”

John clears his throat. “Er... not yet.” He sets down his tea and hastily picks up a guitar. “I once had a girl…” he starts.

“Or should I say, she once had me.” Paul’s voice suddenly curls around his own, amazing John yet again by their effortless harmony. John’s head snaps up, meeting Paul’s gaze for the first time since he arrived at the studio. Regretfully, he lets the chords die out.

“We ought to save the harmony for the middle eight.” Too late, as always, John hears how the words sound out loud and curses his lack of diplomacy.

Paul’s eyes narrow almost imperceptibly. “Well ‘ave ye got one yet?” he asks.

“Was thinkin’ we’d write it together,” John says, determinedly casual. Paul cedes with a shrug of his shoulders, turning away to light a cigarette.

“Let’s try it with drums,” John suggests on a whim. “Two, three, four…” He launches into the strumming, the others scrambling to join in. After a few bars, Ringo settles into a playful rhythm with a slight gallop to it. John shoots him an encouraging smile, swaying in time, until the bass abruptly drops out.

“I really don’t think it needs the drums,” Paul says. “Takes away all the space for layering acoustic guitars.”

“I dunno, I kind of like it,” John counters. “Feels fun.”

“S’not right,” Paul presses.

“S’not your song,” John says, frustration punching through his voice. Paul’s eyebrows shoot up.

“If it’s going on a Beatles record, it’s all of our’s song, mate. You know how it works.” Paul speaks forcefully, brokering no room for argument. Before things can get out of hand, George Martin’s voice comes again from the control room.

“Settle down, boys. I happen to agree with Paul. Full drums clutter the track too much. Ringo, lad, why don’t you try a tambourine?”

Ringo dutifully puts down his sticks and retrieves a tambourine from the floor. “Ready!” he chimes.

John tries to swallow his frustration. He hates the feeling of being ganged up on, particularly when Paul is involved.

Off again they go, through the intro and into the verse. John holds his breath as they approach where a middle eight might go, hoping the collective spirit might inspire them to weather the gap. George falters, but Ringo keeps steady on the tambourine. Feeling suddenly bold, John leaps to the minor Tonic, the harsh version of what should have been home base ringing through the room.

John makes a face, prepared to write off the whole experiment, but Paul shouts, “Yes! That’s it!” Putting down his bass, he reaches for an acoustic guitar. “De do do, de do do, de do do, de do do do do,” he hums, adding a few chords to the progression.

Nodding, John follows along, trying the chords out beneath his own fingers. He thinks a moment, tongue between his teeth, before singing “She asked me to stay and she told me to sit anywhere.”

“So I looked around and I noticed there wasn’t a chair,” Paul responds, prompting a chuckle from John.

“From the top, then,” John calls. Perhaps there’s hope for the session yet. This time, when they reached the bridge, Paul’s voice diverges from his, trailing off into a higher harmony that unexpectedly collapses.

“Golden throat deserting you, Macca?” John quips. “Let’s try that again.”

“You need to change your line. Then the harmony’ll work,” Paul insists.

“Are you taking the piss? Why don’t ye just alter the harmony?” John asks, flabbergasted.

“Because this way it’ll be _good_ ,” Paul presses stubbornly. “Like this,” he sings John’s line, changing a note here and there. It doesn’t strike John as sounding particularly different.

“I just don’ see why I’d have to change the melody,” he grumbles.

“Just try it.” Paul’s tone borders on commanding, which never fails to set John off.

“Only for you, your majesty,” John answers mockingly. He picks up the chords going into the middle eight, and dutifully sings Paul’s preferred melody. Though he truly hates to admit it, the resulting blend of their voices is glorious.

“See?” Paul never could resist pointing out the obvious, particularly when it fell in his favor, John thinks to himself.

“Oh, piss off,” John replies sourly, but they all recognize it for the concession it is. They run through the song again, sailing through the intro, the verse, the bridge, even to new verses. As they reach the natural place for another middle eight, John can’t resist supplanting some new lyrics of his own.

“He was a tosser, and wrongly thought that I’d play fair/But he didn’t know that I put ants in his underwear,” he sings straight to Paul, venting his spleen with as much humor as he can muster. Paul rolls his eyes, but the hint of a smile ghosts across his face.

Despite the levity brought on by John’s puerile lyrics, a distinct tension simmers in the room. John’s eyes follow Paul as he moves about the room, as if watching might reveal some mystical way to fix this. He knows he must be exuding increasing desperation as the session drags on but can’t find it within himself to care. Paul behaves completely opposite, ignoring John unless progress absolutely demands direct interaction. All the while, he maintains an air of casual indifference.

“It doesn’t sound right!” John snaps, stabbing a stool with his boot in frustration.

“At least we agree on something,” Paul remarks.

“I was thinkin’…” George chimes in. “What ‘bout the sitar? Would work well for this riff.”

“Why not?” John shrugs. “Give it a go.”

“I don’t think the song needs it,” Paul dissents.

“Are you just _tryin’_ to go against anything I say?” John seethes. Paul’s eyes land on him, and John feels the wind knocked out of him. Paul’s gaze holds none of the warmth John had basked in this morning (was that really just this morning?). Instead, it’s shrewd, direct, and dispassionate, a combination John isn’t sure he likes being applied to him.

“No, I’m tryin’ to do what’s best for the song,” Paul says coolly. “Or isn’t that why we’re here?”

“Play the sitar, George,” John says firmly. George nods, looking very much like he wants to be left out of whatever is brewing between John and Paul.

They play through the song several times, allowing George to acclimate and experiment with the new instrument. It sounds shaky, to be sure, but John likes what he hears.

As he sings the last lines of the verse, John abandons the chords to pick out a few lines of melody on the guitar. It sounds a little sparse without any backing chords, but John thinks it has promise. As he wraps up a lilting phrase of descending double-stops, they all four drift to a stop as if by mutual agreement. John looks up from the fretboard, ready to cheer at their most successful run-through of the day.

“That end bit was a little over the top, yeah?” Paul critiques. “Y’don’t need to beat it to death, do you?”

John flings the guitar into a stand, a shade more forcefully than intended, and stands up. “Why don’t you record the bloody song, Paul? Oh look, there’s a door. I’ll see meself out. Call me when it hits the charts, why don’t ye?”

He covers the room in long strides and barrels through the door. He’d thought he was leaving the room so he wouldn’t hit Paul, but instead finds he can barely make it to his car before harsh sobs erupt from his chest.

Chucking his keys into a cupholder, John drops his head against the steering wheel. He leaps back as the car horn blares, slamming his head into the roof. “God-fucking-dammit!” John curls into a ball in the driver’s seat, door handle digging rudely into his side.

He isn’t sure how long he stays there, limbs knotted together as if that will keep him from falling apart. Self-disgust claws at his chest at this overblown response. People aren’t supposed to act this way. No one had ever cut John this way. He’d never allowed them close enough.

But Paul was different. Paul had always been just thin enough to slide through all his defenses, embedding himself into John’s life and John’s head and John’s heart before he’d had a say in it at all. And this was the result: locked in his car, sobbing, in the parking lot of a recording studio.

A knock on the window startles John out of his thoughts, making him bash his head into the roof yet again. “Bollocks,” he mutters, hastily wiping his eyes and hoping any redness could be attributed to a good joint.

Paul’s face looms on the other side of the window, looking confused and possibly contrite. John sighs and cracks open the door.

“What do you want?” he askes wearily.

“Thought you’d gone home,” Paul says quietly. “Wanted to make sure yer okay.”

“Bloody stellar,” John bites out. It must have started to rain while John wallowed in the car, because fat drops of water shatter against the open door and onto his nose. Paul’s fringe is plastered across his forehead and dripping water into his eyes, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“Can I get in?” he asks. John shrugs but unlocks the car. Paul slides gracefully into the passenger’s seat, dumping his soaked messenger bag behind him. “You want to tell me what’s up?”

“Oh-ho, is there something in the world that Saint Paul McCartney doesn’t already know?” John asks bitterly. Paul’s eyebrow quirks.

“’M sorry tracking isn’t going better,” he offers. “Y’know how it is, sometimes it takes a while to work it all out. We’ll get there. We always do.”

“But do ye have to be such a prick about it?” John bursts out. “Of course we’ll get there. We’re the fucking Beatles. Only I don’t need your breathing down me neck and tripping me on ev’ry fuckin’ corner to do it.” Once he’s started, John finds it too hard to stop so he keeps going, dumping every pent up thought he’d suffered that day right into Paul’s shocked face.

“Is this some twisted cover? If you make them think you hate me, they’ll never think we’re shagging? Or are you really just a good actor? You paste on a smile and say sweet things and ‘ave me anytime you want, and then it’s over and you can stop pretending. You always were too good at smilin’ for the cameras. An’ I fell for it, just like those stupid screaming birds at the shows.”

“John, stop!” John draws a ragged breath, Paul coming into focus across the center console. His eyes are impossibly bigger and shine with crystalline tears. “Stop. You know that’s not true.”

“Do I?” John interjects.

“How can you ask that? How can you doubt that I- what I _feel_ for you?” Paul’s voice is tight and desperate.

“I’m not a mind reader, Paul, you have to use words. And the words you’ve been using today have been of the distinctly not-tender variety.” Distantly, John can hear the condescension lacing his own voice.

“We’ve been working! We work together! It’s what we do!” Paul exclaims. “If I think something’s not right, of course I’m gonna say it. And you would do the same, you know you would.”

John finds no immediate answer to that and so remains silent.

“It’s all in service of the music, isn’t it?” Paul presses. “We push each other, we always have. S’got nothing to do with _us_ , does it, with this … thing, we’ve got going on?”

“Well how am I supposed to know that? S’not like we talk about it. Ye can’t even put a name on it, for chrissake.”

“Can you?” Paul challenges. “Would you?” he asks, slightly softer.

“I…” John falters. His thoughts jumble in his mind, each one pushing and shoving toward the front. If today has made anything clear, it’s that he’s in far deeper than he’d realized with this.

“Exactly,” Paul says, the cold mask slotting again into place behind his eyes. John feels a wave of panic.

“I want to keep this,” he says hurriedly, cursing his ineloquence. “Whatever it is. I want to keep you.”

Paul is silent for a long moment. John feels the cool appraisal in his gaze, can practically hear the gears whirring in Paul’s mind. His face sets, as if he’s made some kind of decision. John feels his own stomach tense in anticipation.

“I love you, John. There’s no point pretending I don’t. But if this can’t work, if it’s too hard to keep it up, to keep working together… Then tell me now. And I’ll go straight to pretending we’ve never been anything more than songwriting partners. I won’t lose that over this.” Paul’s voice is flat, like he’s trying his hardest to moderate the slight tremble that hides behind it.

“I- Christ, no. That’s … not at all what I want,” John stammers. “Macca, I…” It takes all of his strength to force the next words out of his mouth. “I love you too.” The words tumble to the ground between them gracelessly. John wonders if it’s possible to pick them back up and banish them.

But a small smile appears on Paul’s face and the tears spill over and John doesn’t regret anything.


End file.
